February 13, 2009 – Overcoming Inequality in Basic Education

Summary

On February 13 2009, the Basic Education Coalition co-sponsored a briefing with UNESCO, to discuss the results of the 2009 EFA Global Monitoring Report, Overcoming Inequality: Why Governance Matters. The briefing took place from 10 am-12 pm in 485 Russell Senate Office Building.

The United States is one of 164 countries that committed in 2000 to the goal that all the worldâ€™s children would have access to a quality primary education by the year 2015. While progress has been made toward the Education for All (EFA) goal, 75 million children around the world remain out of school and 776 million adults lack basic literacy skills.

Each year, UNESCO issues an EFA Global Monitoring Report, which analyzes the progress being made toward Education for All. This year’s report, Overcoming Inequality: Why Governance Matters, focuses on troubling disparities in education based on wealth, gender, location, ethnicity and other markers for disadvantage. Representatives of the Academy for Educational Development, Save the Children and World Learning discussed the work they are engaged in around the world to address some of these educational disparities.